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Today, we’re diving into the tricky waters of empathy and how to keep your big heart from feeling weighed down in a world that can feel pretty rough. I’m Stephen Webb, and I’m here to help you navigate life’s storms without losing your cool or your compassion. We’ll chat about how empathy develops over time, from feeling your own pain to understanding the pain of others, and even the collective suffering of the world. It’s all about learning to feel those emotions without letting them drag you down. So, let’s explore how we can care deeply while still standing strong and not getting overwhelmed!

One of the hardest things I've had to do since I started to open my heart is to also know what is mine to carry and what isn't.

In this podcast, I talk about the development of empathy, from when you are very young to the higher levels of empathy that very few people manage to get to.

Empathy can really be a great gift, and as the cliche goes it can also be a great burden if we allow it to drown us.

Please enjoy, let me know what you thought. A review would be amazing, and if you could buy me a coffee head over to my website and the link is at the top.

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Navigating life's challenges with a big heart can feel overwhelming, especially when surrounded by self-centered individuals. In this discussion, we dive deep into empathy's development and how we can cultivate it without falling victim to the narcissism that often surrounds us. The episode starts with a personal anecdote about a touching moment between a parent and child that illustrates the gradual growth of empathy. We explore the stages of empathy, from initial self-centeredness as infants to the ability to share and understand others' pain as adults. The conversation emphasizes that empathy is a skill that can be developed over time, and it's essential to learn how to manage the emotional burden that comes with it.

As we unpack these concepts, we also tackle the idea of emotional overload. It's crucial to recognize when we begin to take on the pain of others as if it were our own. This episode encourages listeners to find a balance between empathizing with others and maintaining personal emotional health. We discuss practical strategies for feeling empathy while avoiding the pitfalls of emotional exhaustion, especially for those in caregiving roles. The takeaway is clear: we can be compassionate and supportive without allowing the weight of others' suffering to drag us down.

In the latter part of the episode, we reflect on the current socio-political climate and the importance of remaining grounded. With so much negativity in the news, it's easy to become overwhelmed by collective suffering. The host reminds us to engage with the world compassionately but warns against taking on too much emotional baggage. By establishing boundaries and understanding our limits, we can better serve ourselves and those around us. The episode wraps up with a call to action for listeners to practice empathy mindfully and to cherish their emotional wellbeing. We can embrace the storms of life, but we must not let them drown us. This insightful exploration of empathy offers valuable lessons for anyone looking to navigate life with a big heart while maintaining their inner peace.

Takeaways:

• Empathy is a skill we develop over time, not something we are born with.
• Feeling pain and empathy for others helps us connect, but we should not carry it forever.
• We must learn to allow ourselves to feel others' pain without letting it overwhelm us.
• Navigating life's challenges requires us to experience our own emotions while supporting others.

Hey.

Welcome to the stillness in the storms of life.

I'm Stephen Webb, your host, and this podcast will help you to navigate the turbulence of life while remaining calm when you need it most and you have it least.

On today's show, I'll be talking about how do you live in a world that sometimes really is difficult when you've got a big heart and you really do care?

Sometimes it feels like we're drowning.

Sometimes it's just really difficult.

All the narcissists and all the people out there that seem to only care about themselves, you know, we're talking about the development of empathy, more importantly, the levels of empathy and how we can grow a deeper caring, you know, without being taken advantage of and without becoming a victim of all the narcissists out there.

But before we start, I want to say thank you to Angela and another anonymous person.

They bought me a coffee this week, and it helps support what I do.

It helps me to produce more.

And if you would like to treat me to a coffee just the same as Angela and somebody else, just head over to stephenweb.com there's a link at the top of the page.

So empathy and this big heart.

I remember watching a movie with my daughter.

She's now 21, but.

But she was.

When she was about six, seven maybe.

I remember watching a movie, and it was quite upset, and I was crying, and I think her mum was crying, and she looked at us both and said, why are you crying?

We're like, well, because it's sad.

It's not very.

And I cannot remember what the movie was about now, but it was sad and she didn't understand at all.

And then it was about a year later, we were sat in the kitchen and we were just having a conversation, and we just suddenly heard Kembra start crying.

They said, are you all right?

And she come out around the corner and she was sobbing.

You know, the kind of crying that is.

You're really hard to catch your breath and all your face, the tears are literally running.

Oh, are you okay?

Are you okay?

What's wrong?

And she said, the dog died.

And it was at the end of the movie, the dog had passed away, and she felt this deep inner pain.

And at the time, I thought, well, you know, that's fine.

You know, we care, we feel pain.

But I did not understand the way we grow in and we develop it.

And what it shown me was we're not born with this caring empathy.

We're not born with these skills.

When we are born, we're Quite selfish.

We don't care that the mum's been up several nights and they're really tired.

We're going to cry because we're hungry or we're uncomfortable.

The important things to us at that point is, you know, food and comfort and warmth, security and safety.

And if we haven't got those things, we're going to cry.

We're going to make a fuss to get them done, to get our parents to sort it or whoever is looking after us at the time.

And then as time goes on, when we start caring about things and then things go wrong and we miss people.

Or like with Kember, that dog died in the movie, and we.

We suddenly feel pain.

And that's the first part of developing this new skill set of the body feeling this kind of loss, this grief process.

And of course, that's the first sign of it.

We can only understand it from our own perspective at that point.

At that point, there's still no empathy.

There's still no understanding of someone else's pain.

It's just, I feel pain and I have to let this pain out.

I have to get rid of it in some way.

And that's why we have this outburst of tears.

It's a way of trying to get rid of this emotion that is overwhelming us.

And that day, she was very overwhelmed.

And then as time goes on, we feel more of this pain and we get used to what we like and dislike, and we realize it develops on many levels.

And that would be the first level of developing the.

The empathy line of skill, if you want to call it that.

And the second one is being able to see somebody else's pain.

You know, when a friend comes along and says, you know, I'm hurting because I lost my dog, and we can empathize with them, at that point, we almost sympathize and go, oh, you know, that's not very nice.

You know, that must really hurt.

But we don't actually feel their pain.

We just.

We're referencing our pain.

And if we haven't felt that same thing, we may not know what it's like for them, but we're not bothered by it.

Well, that's their pain.

We have sympathy, you know, but we can leave it, we can walk away from it, and then we move on.

And this normally happens more in adulthood.

And as we develop this empathy and empathy is the ability to feel somebody else's pain.

So when you sit down with a friend and they look at you and go, well, my boyfriend's left me, or something's gone wrong or I lost my dog or something.

And we're able to then feel what they're feeling.

And we feel that grief.

And we feel all the hurt may not be to the same degree, and it may be only based on our reference of what that would feel like, but we are actually feeling it for them.

And then we.

We go deeper into that.

And when we go deeper into that, the problem is we then take on that pain as if it's our own, especially for a family member or a child of ours.

It's very common for parents to take on the children's pain.

And we try to avoid at all costs allowing our children to feel only this pain because we don't like it.

So we don't want our children to feel this pain.

And we want our children to live a happy life without experiencing this.

Unfortunately, if we don't allow our children to experience it, they'll never develop through these levels of what I'm talking about.

So the next level, we end up being dragged down by it.

We end up taking the pain of.

Because it's not only our first person.

We were talking about the second person, the other person in our lives, somebody else coming along with our problem.

Well, the next development is the third person.

So we're not only feeling pain for ourselves, we're feeling pain for the other and the group or the culture or the town or the country.

And then we hear on the news about something going wrong or some war somewhere, some children getting kidnapped.

And we take on that pain as well, because we put ourselves in their shoes.

And our minds cannot tell the difference between someone else's pain and our own pain.

The body's just arising.

What did it feel like last time?

What's the closest thing I can do to reference this other person or group's pain?

So it brings that up just the same as if we're trying a food or something new.

We look to our reference, subconscious mind and our past experiences for the closest match to the current experience.

So if someone's telling you about they've lost a cat, we may reference to losing a dog or losing our hamster when we were five.

It doesn't have to be the exact reference.

It's just a pain in a very similar way of loss or grief.

Losing something you love, losing something that you're attached to.

And at this point, you're taking on so many pains.

And this is where a doctor or a nurse might not be able to continue in the job because they're seeing people die and they see people get ill. And they see families treating these patients and things like that in different ways.

And they may not be able to cope with it because they're overwhelmed by it.

It's.

They're taking on all of the pain.

It's a natural progression from your own empathy or your own pain empathy, another empathy of the group.

But then you can move on to the next part.

And this part's often very much misunderstood.

And that is where, in the moment, we can feel the pain of the other or the group or the collective of the world.

We can watch the news and we feel the pain of that refugee child.

Remember when that child was washed up on the beach and it went around the world in Syria, and we all felt for the parents and that child.

But some people on the third level will take it everywhere with them, and they'll look at the world as a cruel world, and they won't be able to look at anything positive for the next few hours because they're feeling all the grief of that child.

But the next level fills the grief of that child, but doesn't hold it as if it's their own.

So they're able to step in the shoes of perhaps the parents or that child to the best they can with references they've got, but they don't become it, so it doesn't overwhelm them.

They don't walk away with it.

And this is where doctors and nurses or vets can often have a very difficult day, and they go home and they can watch Netflix or they do other things.

I don't know what they would do to relax, but I should imagine they would do something similar to that.

And they're almost seen as, how can you do that?

I couldn't do that job.

How can you just do that during the day and then go home and as if nothing happened?

Well, it's not because they're not feeling the pain.

It's not because they're not feeling hurt or the empathy of the family and things like that.

It's because they're learning that it's not theirs to carry.

It's not their pain to take on day in and day out.

Also, I would like to point out that these levels, even if you get to a stage when you're able to take on the collective and you don't carry it with you, and you're able to be angry about injustices and things that are calling others pain and you're doing something about it, even if you're that brilliant humanitarian that is able to feel all these things, but yet distance themselves.

It doesn't mean you always stay there.

If you're not feeling very well or you're struggling one day or you're tired, you might jump back down a couple of levels.

And at that point, when you're feeling run down, you might take on the pain of the group or the collective.

It might be very hard to cope for a few days.

You know, it really is a center of compass.

It's not right.

I'm at that level now and that's it.

I'm done, complete.

And there's levels above it, I'm sure, but I cannot reference them because I'm not there.

I can only see as high as I've gone or high as I've experienced.

So that's all I can share with you.

There's so much more to this, and I've probably gone into empathy more than most people have ever heard in their lives.

But it's really interesting to see where we are and where we can develop and moving through these levels as we go up, you know, our skill and our ability to deal with life's problems when they're thrown at us, to deal with life's curveballs and remain in.

In control and responding to life instead of being buffered by life.

Now, this is what this podcast is all about, and this is what I help my clients to do.

I cannot fix the world's problems.

It's not about creating stillness in the storms, is not about me fighting the storm.

I cannot get rid of the storms in life.

I cannot get everybody to suddenly be nice just because you and me want a little inner peace.

That's just not going to happen.

But what we can do is we can learn to be in that storm and we can learn to feel these grief and pain but not allow it to chop our legs off in a metaphor.

We need to have that foundation of developing this ability to feel our own pain, empathize with our own pain, and as well as somebody else, the third person.

And you know, the world right now is suffering a little, you know, politically and nationally.

You know, there's a real rise of a certain type of fear at the moment.

We can't take on the world's problems.

Turn on the news, watch the news for 20 minutes, and then turn it off and leave it there.

When a friend comes over and tells you about what a hard time they're having, allow them to tell you, feel their pain, have empathy for them, but don't carry it onto your kids or don't carry it with you the next day.

And the next week, you know, when somebody cuts you up in the road, may scream and shout at you, they may flip you the bird or whatever.

That's their anger, that's their pain, their fear.

Whatever they're going through, don't carry it on till later.

Have empathy for their life in that moment.

Because if they're in that kind of turmoil to want to shout and flip the bird to you, they're suffering.

And I think that's what we all need to do.

We need to develop this empathy, but don't allow it to paralyze us.

Don't carry it, just feel it.

Allow it to be a visitor.

Let it in, open your heart to the suffering and then let it go afterwards, when it's no longer serving, when it's no longer needed, when that person's gone.

I hope that makes sense.

If this makes sense, let me know in the comments.

And of course, buy me a coffee.

If it helps.

Head over to my website, StephenWeb.com and if you want a shout out on the next show, every Monday there'll be a new show.

I took a bit of a siesta, but I'm back.

And if you buy me a coffee, you can vote on what you would like the show to be about next.

Take care.

Have a good one.

I'm Stephen Webb and take care.

By.